Chapter 62 (v.1) - THE CHASE

Darnell Pillory continued to petrify the pilot and crew of his converted gunship by ordering the copter to a spot four feet above the ground while they tracked the strange lines being fed to them
by the satellites.

“Holy horse poop,” uttered the Sergeant as they came upon a small rise in the ground—somewhat over five feet high.

Before Darnell could utter a cry—or an order---the pilot abruptly lifted the copter to go over the hillock.

At the moment when the pilot was barely above the rise, an older dark blue Rolls Royce burst though an aperture under the hill, scattering sod, bits of wood, as well as pieces of the frame recently
attached to a three-foot thick door hidden behind ten feet of earth. The Rolls tossed these impediments willy nilly, as though they were no more than feathers.

“Jumpin’ Jesus, man. What the hell is that?” Pillory exclaimed, addressing no one and everyone.

After the moments necessary for Pillory to remove thoughts of screwing Barbara one day, as well as his lingering immediate fear of smashing up the copter with all its passengers in a ball
of exploding napalm, he asked. “What fugitives, Officer?”

“Well,” shrieked Barbara over the noise of her ride, “I think they may be the two from the lake; you know, on those tracks we saw.”

By the time Officer Jasper Jacks managed to do the tightest turn that the copter gunship would allow, there was no sign of the flying Rolls.

“What the hell,” gaped Pillory upon the vacant landscape. Then he realized that he had not countermanded the order to Jasper to fly at four feet above the earth.

“Up, man, up,” shrieked Pillory.

When J.J. found some elevation under the copter, he and the others peered into the bright blazing blue of an August afternoon heat . . . and saw nothing; only a barely perceptible pair of rough
overgrown narrow tracks leading east.

The Rolls had not evaporated as some on Pillory’s copter believed; it had merely accelerated to over one hundred miles per hour in less that ten seconds and was now approaching a farm road, which
led to the on-ramp for 280 North.

Lieutenant Forbes flew close behind Pillory, following the low-level pattern of his comrade. The other three copters were in line behind Forbes. None of the crews caught a glimpse of
the Rolls Royce even after rapidly raising their gunships.

Nevertheless, all five ships took up the chase of the Rolls based on the exit angle of the vehicle from its secret hidden underground depot.

* **

Tom and Electra were about to turn off the narrow road to catch up with Lieutenant Baker and his SWAT Teams.

Fiona and Brett dashed along with Bill in his Bentley, following the speeding Spyder.

Immediately upon turning into the dead-end lane leading to the overgrown track and small lake, Electra made an involuntary hard right turn, a maneuver that landed her halfway under the barbed wire
of a large field full of Texas Longhorns.

The immediate cause for this dangerous maneuver while speeding along at seventy miles an hour were road-clogging hundreds of Hells Angels, at least forty-three cabs, Ubers, and Lyfts, packed with
lily white young men, and the two enormous SWAT vehicles, plus five CHP cars, as well as a host of disparate conveyances driven by representatives of the twelve surrounding police jurisdictions.

Tom and Electra sat in a mind-clogged silence for a minute before using their phones to seek information.

Fiona, Bill, and Brett were only a couple of yards behind the Spyder. Fiona took time out to marvel at the cavalcade of vehicles, bikes, and SWAT monsters filling all four
lanes of northbound 280.

While Fiona slowed to view this freakish procession of outlandish protoplasm, there appeared a pre-owned APC with a black man wearing a deep purple beret, standing grimly erect from
inside his vehicle. He rumbled past Bill’s Bentley and took up the shoulder route once more.

All these mixed blobs of traffic, comprised of hordes of people going in different directions at different speeds, told Fiona and her comrades in the Bentley nothing.

However, both Fiona and Bill received good intel from a patch through to Pillory and Forbes.

Elvis stressed the fact that the Rolls Royce was now northbound on 280, at this point, only a mile behind the speeding flotilla of bikers, cops, CHP Officers, police personnel from the surrounding
area, and cabbies. Elvis reckoned the Rolls would hit the back of the pack within seconds.

“And Jesus Murphy, guys, that rig has flashing red and blue lights, a center revolving light, two kinds of sirens as well as a new whupping noise that can be
heard by the low-rider’s who have their woofers and hooters turned up. And there is a vicious oddball assortment of metal pipes that cover the entire front of the Rolls and runs along both sides,
reaching back to the rear passenger door. Holy Toledo, this immense group of our guys are pulling to the left and right to let this thing through, Whoops; there
was one who didn’t. Now his bike just landed but he’s still in the air. Keep in touch.”

Bill decided to get to the other side of the freeway and follow the humongous cluster of humanity and their wide choice of rides barreling up the northbound lanes of 280.

However, Bill first had to find an off-ramp, go under the freeway, and then pick up the northbound on-ramp.

While Brett volunteered the distance to the next off-ramp, Fiona stayed with her phone, as Bill goosed the Bentley, arriving at their off-ramp in time to see a Rolls
Royce with two occupants blur past them somewhere in the region of one hundred and forty miles an hour.

“Holy shit,” wheezed Bill, “Jesus H. That thing is going well over a hundred—at least. I think we should follow.”

* * *
Riddick gently drifted the speeding Rolls around two lanes of the four heading north on 280 where he saw ahead of him, occupying all four lanes, a remarkable combination of vehicles. The big SWAT
Team carriers were slower than those leading the gaggle of vehicle-borne humanity but not by much.

Lieutenant Baker was a practicing racecar driver who routinely won trophies at Sonoma Raceway. He was in charge of boring out and tweaking up the old SWAT vehicles. With the addition of a
nitro system, the carriers could reach speeds of a hundred and twenty on the flat.

However, Axel, as well as the Whites First Brotherhood’s rides, was knocking through the red line of his speedometer. Of course, Axel led the troupe and slowed from a hundred and thirty
to allow the others catch up.

* * *

Riddick pressed several buttons that activated standard police lights embedded in the front ant the back of the roof, which opened and snapped into place.

At the same time, a twirling light rose out of the center of the roof. A screaming siren joined a wailing siren, plus a thudding sound, all warnings to the conveyances ahead of Malcolm to pull
over. For the most apart they did.

The thought that the two fugitives were ahead of them was widely believed by the pursuers, and persisted for a few moments, where, in fact, Riddick and the boss had cleverly waited behind a
designated blind a couple of hundred yards past the on-ramp to northbound 280, to allow all their pursuers to blast onto the freeway.

This feint allowed Riddick and the boss to plan a run through the rabble with lights, sirens, and special noisemakers generally designed to terrify all who heard them.

Everyone who caught so much as a glimpse of the rocketing vehicle wondered where the cops got all the money to build such a monster. Others immediately put one on their wish list—or bucket list, if
you were a wounded Whites Firster.

However, all were left in some state of agogness, agapeness, incredulity---at the same time, admiring what a fine piece of flying road machinery they were beholding.

Well before Axel had any idea of what was transpiring behind him, the Rolls Royce with all police paraphernalia, including wicked front and side-mounted mounted battering rams sped
through the yielding masses. All who failed to yield to a speeding law enforcement vehicle were bowled over, smashed or crushed, as the V12R Merlin engine thrust past.

In less than a second the Rolls was fifty yards ahead of the entire troupe.

Axel thought in terms of admiration:

Son-of-a-bitch; that sucker is flat-asses flyin’; maybe a hundred and forty

In fact, Riddick was still holding the nitro switch down while he watched the needle rise to one hundred and fifty five. The gang of people he immediately labeled as degenerates, was left
in his rear view mirror and after thirty seconds Riddick had at least a mile and a half lead.

* * *

Riddick and Edward enjoyed doing up the Rolls and every year preceding Eddy’s demise the two of them worked in new touches for speed and ‘authority’. A couple of the police lights
were new as well as the whupping noise-maker that sounded like the last sound you would ever hear.

At the same time that the two men worked on the Rolls, they would take it to Infineon, then called Sears Point, where Riddick proved to be the faster handler of the vicious Frankenstein-Rolls,
reaching a top speed on the last run of one hundred and eighty miles per hour; that with full nitro on and all other systems maxed out.

Now on 280, the Rolls was hitting a top speed of one hundred and sixty. Riddick was cool, the boss totally unconcerned.

Within seconds, the turnoff to San Francisco International Airport jumped into Riddick’s face. He eased off only slightly while he executed a controlled drift onto the eastbound
freeway leading to the SFO terminal.